In two interviews this month, the “Merch Planner” brief included owning OTB plus assortment curation for Amazon/Walmart Marketplace, with KPIs tied to buy box, return rate, and channel margin. Is this the new norm — planners steering third‑party assortment and promo cadence across marketplaces — or should that sit with ecom/marketplace teams?
margin. Is this the new norm — planners steering third‑party assortment and promo Mostly in lean orgs, but it drives me nuts when planners get buy box and return‑rate KPIs — keep OTB and assortment guardrails in Planning, leave pricing/promo cadence and buy box defense with the marketplace team. One concrete fix: run a weekly ASIN health sync where Planning brings OTB and target mix while ops owns price, promo, and content tweaks; share channel margin as the joint KPI, not buy box alone.
Short answer from my side: I’m seeing the same pattern — one concrete thing that helped was writing down the exact handoff and timebox it to 15–20 min. Does that match what you’re running into?